Thursday 31 January 2008

Pic of the day: On honor and conscience!

No more tax papers

When I started this journal, January 31 was still the day most Norwegians filed our taxes. The exception was those who ran a business. Of course we could file them earlier in the month, but most waited as long as possible, as we tend to do with unpleasant things. It didn't help that papers from employers and from banks tend to arrive late in the month too.

With the new millennium, tax date was changed to April 30, and the government filled in the forms for us. Unsurprisingly, the government generally knew more about our economy than we did. (As one American said, "I'll take seriously the Left's demands for privacy when they want to abolish the income tax." Seriously, you could get the money from sales tax, but then the government would have one less reason to know everything we did. And you never know when that might be useful.)

This year, even the pretense is gone. Unless you for some reason should know something the IRS doesn't, or disagree with them, you won't have to file for taxes. It all goes automatically. Most people won't have to think about it at all. I took a look at my tax paper. It looked reasonable. I may file anyway because I can, but there is really no point.

It is a venerable tradition that goes to its grave. For the longest time, people had to sign their tax forms "on honor and conscience", and the phrase is still recognized by most adults. One of the founders of the Christian Church at Brunstad ("Smith's Friends") wrote that politicians ought to give the same guarantee for their use of the money. Honor and conscience are probably not the two first words most of us associate with politics, more's the pity.

Soon even I will have forgotten that there was anything special about January 31, I guess. But I still remember. In fact, I still remember the first time I filled in my tax form, and could not understand why they wanted to know if I had nourishment in another municipality. (The Norwegian word "næring" can mean both business and nourishment, though very few non-bureaucrats would use it in the first sense. I sure can't remember having ever heard it used that way in everyday speech.)